We Will Walk
by teresita8866
Summary: Renesmee knows little of the world beyond her family and their quiet life in remote Labrador, until teenage angst and fierce maternal instinct meet, and send Bella and Renesmee out on their own for the first time - destination, Forks, WA
1. Chapter 1

_Start. My Documents. Renesmee. PRIVATE. _My fingers found home row again, and I began.

_How do you find out who you are? Who you're supposed to be? _

_I know I have a good life: my parents adore me – at least, they love the "Renesmee Carlie Cullen" they have in their heads; my extended family are great; we're pretty much loaded; and I'll probably never die. Wow, that looks more weird than I thought it would..._

_A little background, perhaps:_

_I was born sixteen years ago in a little town in Washington state to an eighteen-year-old girl and her centenarian vampire of a husband. I almost killed her, and she was changed into one of them to save her life immediately after my birth. My early life was pretty exciting, I guess – a visit from a slew of benevolent vampires and a group of less-than-benevolent ones, whispers of wars and werewolves, and my own super-rapid growth – and we moved every few months for a couple of years. _

_My mother told me she'd been terrified that I would age so fast that I'd be dead by now, like some sort of supernatural progeria. Grandfather Carlisle had charted my growth in the first few months, and expected me to reach maturity at around seven years of age, which had been confirmed by a family acquaintance, Nahuel, another hell-spawn — or, vampire/human "hybrid," as they like to call me, as though I were an improvement on either species – but they were wrong. By my third birthday, I appeared and functioned as an eight year old human child; but while Grandfather's estimations would have placed me at nearly eleven on my fourth, when the dismally-attended party arrived, I hadn't aged so drastically after all. I was ahead of the curve thanks to my head start, but my growth slowed to near-human – in a year, I only aged a year – and continued to do so until reaching physical maturity three years ago. _

_I never knew even one other child growing up. My family was all I knew: they were my protectors, my friends, my enemies, my mentors, and my tormentors all wrapped up in one unit. My mother, Bella, is quiet but fiercely protective of those she loves, with a dry wit that, without fail, goes right over most everyone's head. Edward, my father, is incredibly chivalrous – charmingly so, at times; "me-kill-mammoth-you-no-leave-cave" so, at other times. Sometimes I call Grandfather Carlisle "Poppy Gee" just to see the confusion in his eyes as to where his granddaughter came up with such an absurd and unfitting nickname, while my Grammie, Esme, just smiles and pats his shoulder. Uncle Emmett and Aunt Rosalie lived with us. Emmett always snickered when I called Rosalie "Aunt Rose," and she would run a hand up to his shoulder all casual and cool, then sucker-punch him for it. She's always been my favourite. Uncle Jasper and Aunt Alice flitted in and out of our lives, always bearing gifts and sunshine and rainbows and butterflies, but leaving as quickly as they came. _

_Their departure always threw my mother into a slump for a few weeks. She would say that Alice was her best friend, and that seeing her again made it hard to say goodbye. Their reunions and adieu's were as close to tearful as their fluid-less bodies would allow, for sure, but I always had a sense that wasn't the whole story. No one would satisfy my curiosity._

_My family's constant quest for overcast days brought us north of the land of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" into the world of "peace, order, and good government" within my first year. We've lived all over the country, building or buying dwellings in the vast expanses of uninhabited land of nearly every province, and both territories. Now, we live just outside of the twin towns of Labrador City and Wabush, Newfoundland, Canada. With a population of just under 9,000 –_

"Renesmee!" My mother. She was home? "I'm only here for a sec, I've left something." What, did she _hear_ my brow furrow? "Can you come out here please?"

"Just a second, OK?" Save. Close. Laptop closed. _Good_.

I could just picture my mother leaning in through the half-open front door, one hand on the door-frame, her arm glittering in the winter sun, just like the snow on the ground behind her, probably wearing only a camisole and jean shorts. _Jorts_. _Heh_. Awful, those.

I padded down the hall, turned the corner into the small living room, and out into the front mudroom. I was right, she was in jorts.

"It's February, you know?" I said. She just shrugged her shoulders and smiled a little, with that far-off look in her eyes she can't seem to shake. She's an odd woman, I do like that about my mother. She looked at the ground for a half-second and shook her head, then looked back up at me.

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?"

_Sigh_. "I'm sure. Am I the _thing _you've left?" I was taken aback by the acid in my own voice. Now it was my turn to look down at the floor. _Deep breath_. Back up at her. "Sorry. But I'm sure."

"I don't know that I want you to do this." She said, and her voice trailed. She opened her mouth again slightly, but didn't say anything more.

"Listen, I know how everyone feels about this, I've heard it all. I have to do it anyway." I closed my eyes and took a breath. I could feel the anxiety welling back up as I remembered the day I announced that I was going to try living without blood. I didn't understand their immediate anger, and as they each said their piece, I understood it less and less. _Breathe._ "I don't know why you don't understand."

She hesitated then, and bit her bottom lip, "I do understand." She looked almost nervous as she brushed some hair behind her ear, and bit her thumbnail._ Definitely nervous_. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. On instinct I stepped back to let her through the door into the living room, but she stood where she was. "What if you start ageing again? What if you die? Have you even thought about that? You're sixteen years old, that's all, that's too young to put your life on the line!" I can't recall the last time my mother spoke so quickly or so forcefully. I took another step back, but this time she followed me, right into my personal space. "I fought _so hard _for you, we all did, and now you could just throw it all away! All you can think of is what you want, the normal life you want, but you don't know what a normal life is, you–"

"Exactly!" I cut her off. "I need to know! Why don't you get that?"

"You wanna know what a normal life is, missy?" _Missy?_ "A normal life is a dead family! Don't you get that? A normal life is burying your father, or burying your daughter!"

Emotional blackmail! I was furious!

"How dare you!" _I just screamed at my mother_ – my mother who endured so much to have me, and raise me, but it was too late to stop myself. "How can you hold that over my head? It isn't my fault you didn't go to your father's funeral; it's not my fault that people die! Youchose what you are, and yourchoice made me what Ihave to be! I want to see if I can be what I want, but you just can't handle that or something? You're such a hypocrite!" She stood stone-still in front of me. "Hypocrite!" I screamed as loudly as I could right into her face. She didn't even flinch.

I turned on my heel, and ran toward the back of the house, through the large kitchen, out the back door, and across the yard, into the sparse forest behind our house. I ran and ran until I came to the frozen creek where I'd spent days worth of time sitting on the bank; my "me" place. _Come the spring thaw, it will be like a raging river_, I thought as I dropped to the ground, exhausted for the first time I could remember, _I would jump in and let it carry me away._

I had drifted into a light, dreamless sleep on the bank of the creek, less from exertion than a need to clear my mind, but as the sunlight turned a deeper yellow and the shadows grew long and flickered over my eyelids I stirred awake. The sun hit the trunk of a red pine and I made a mental note of the rich, warm brown as a possibility for the paint job my bedroom desperately needed. It had been almost seven years since my parents and I had moved into the small two-storey farmhouse outside of Labrador City. We were on hunting trip during caribou season and happened across it while my mother was on the trail of a unsuspecting stag; the second she saw it she snapped out of the hunt and stood transfixed, as if the building were hypnotizing her. I could tell right away my father was not impressed at all by it, but when my mother and I took a look inside the obviously abandoned building I fell in love, too. _Two against one, hah!_ Edward threw up his hands, but insisted we have the best contractors available in to fix up the place before we even considered leaving my grandparent's home in Goose Bay.

_Mom!_ I forgot all about our confrontation. I groaned as I sat up, realizing how I'd left her – the things I said! I was seriously tempted to stay right where I was, but the sun would be setting soon, and I was a little bit hungry and a little bit chilly. Maybe cutting blood out of my diet really was making me weaker. _So what! I have to try it, at least for a while_. I reminded myself of how badly I wanted to just be human, or at least have the closest thing to the human experience I could, and added what was happening to my body to the list of things I would _not_ be mentioning anytime soon.

As badly as I wanted to walk very, very slowly back to the house, the creek was on the far edge of the property and if I wanted to get back before dark, I would have to run. Despite the heightened senses and superior strength and speed – which I can thank my father for – there are plenty of things "out there" which everyone says I am simply no match for, especially at night; consequently, sunset is my curfew – which I can also thank one Edward Cullen for. _Heaven forbid he teach me how to defend myself or something crazy like that._

The frozen landscape rushed past me as I ran back to our little red farmhouse, and I blew through the kitchen door just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, toward the living room, and right into the stone frame of my father. _Don't look up, don't look up, don't look _– he cleared his throat, and I was looking straight into his eyes. _Whoa, not good_. I edged backward.

"No, Renesmee, not good at all. Would you care to explain your mother's state?" I hated when he crawled into my head, but followed his gaze to my mother, still standing just inside the front door. If I didn't know better, I would have thought she'd frozen to death – unless this _is_ how vampires die? Their daughters say terrible things to them, they shut down, and it's all my doing?

I replayed our argument in my head, both for my mind-reading father's benefit and my own, as I couldn't bear to say the words out loud again. In less than an instant, he was at my mother's side and I was crumpling to the floor as the tears started. What had I really said that was worse than any other teenager? Why did I go _there_, and throw the death of a grandfather I never even knew in her face – and for what, really? Why couldn't she deal with it like a normal mother, and just slap me or ground me? Why wasn't anything in my life normal? And why was I so worried about _myself_ when I had no idea what was happening to my mother, my mommy?

When I managed to lift my head to look up at my parents, Mom was just the same and my father was stroking her hair and whispering into her ear, no doubt professing his love for her, begging her to say something, anything to him. _Just like Pygmalion and his purest, fairest ivory woman – she wouldn't speak to him, either_, I couldn't help but think.

My father's head turned faster than I could see it, his yellow eyes frightening me for the first time in my life. They'd always been like honey to me, the providers of my doting father's shining gaze, melting his pride over me as I sang with my mother, or presented my findings at our family science fairs, or even my lacklustre-but-determined effort at tap-dancing. Now, oh now, they were like some sort of wild thing from the worst of nightmares I couldn't survive dreaming. Instantly, I understood the wide berth our family was given on our rare trips into town, why the clerks, so warm toward me, would clam up and look away when my parents stepped into their view – they were instinctively avoiding the slickest, sickest predator of all. The mask was ripped off, and I wondered if the father I knew even existed at all.

"That's quite the thought-stream, sweetheart." I heard him before I saw him crouched in front of me, eye-to-eye. Like his eyes, the dulcet tones of my Daddy's voice had soured, and he laughed a cruel, bitter chuckle. "We think we know everything, now, don't we?"

_Just keep breathing, don't look away._ "Daddy, I..." don't know what to say.

I stared into his eyes, shaking harder than ever in my life, and detected the slightest of movement in him, so I closed my eyes, braced for God-knows-what, when I sensed a void where Edward had been.

"Get out!" _Mom!_ "Go now, before I kill you. I swear to God, I'll do it." I looked over to where I heard her voice: across the living room from where she'd been standing so still moments before, with my father pinned to the floor under her, pain and adoration mingling on his face as he stared at her, and looking, again, somewhat like the father I knew.

"Bella, love, don't do this." He pleaded with her as his words sped up. "I don't know what came over me, I don't know what I am without my family. Please!"

Fear washed over me again as I watched my mother lean over his ear and, inaudibly to me, whisper something that made my Daddy's sweet face fall into that of a broken little boy. I knew nothing would be the same for us. I knew that, were we human, we were now a statistic.

I knew our family was no more.

* * *

**A/N: Hey-o! to anyone who stuck this far :) I've got an idea where I'm going with this one, and a few more chapters written, but I'd appreciate any comments, critiques, inconsistencies I'm missing, etc. Then we all win, because I clean it up into something I can be proud of, and you lovely folks have something that doesn't kill those precious brain cells as you read it. Thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2

My father was nowhere to be seen, and my mother rushed to my side and gathered me into a cold, tight embrace. I don't know how long we held onto each other on the floor, but eventually my mother's icy temperature began to beat out my inexplicably elevated one and I started to shiver. I didn't have the words anymore, so I made use of the "gift" I had tried hard to forget I possessed, and cupped a hand to my mother's cheek, transmitting all the sorrow and love I could before sending a final _I'm really cold, though_ her way.

She smiled at me. "Go get a sweater then, kiddo." _A sad smile._

When I came back downstairs, Mom was at the kitchen counter, staring at the electric kettle. Orange light on. _Click_. Light off. Mother at the table with tea steeping for me and a mug of hot water for her to hold. _It warms me some_, she always said with finality, as if she were closing an argument never even begun. I sat down before she asked.

"I can go stay with Grand-" I started, but she cut me off.

"No. No way. Completely out of the question." Her jaw tightened as her mug turned to dust in her hands.

"I don't mean it like that, I just mean that I'm toxic or something right now. I'll go to Goose Bay, and you and Dad can be alone for a bit and, I don't know, work it out?" How could she not want me to leave after today? How could she even stand to look at me? I looked down at the table where I'd sat so many mornings, contentedly munching on breakfast and a cup of blood, while my father sat across from me with my mother on his lap, a smile spreading across his face whenever she'd run her fingers through his hair before getting up to grab me more food, or answer a ringing phone. He would finish the local paper, and by the time he'd set it on the table, she was lowering his National Post right in front of his face, and he'd kiss both her hands before she'd get back to whatever she was doing. And I'd ruined it all; everything was gone.

_Breathe. Breathe._ If I could destroy my own family single-handed, surely I could stop the sobs welling in my chest before they reared their ugly heads. _Breathe in. Breathe out_. I distracted myself with my tea; taking out the bag, pouring in a little milk, a lump of sugar, stirring like a madwoman, until a traitor tear splashed onto the table and my mother was instantly crouched at my side again, comforting the child who had so betrayed her love. She placed a frozen hand on my cheek and guided my head to face hers, but I still couldn't look at her, so I squished my eyes closed.

"Renesmee, look at me." I opened one eye and saw a slight, soft smile play on her lips, so I braved it and opened the other. She put her serious mom face on again. "What you said today hurt me, a lot; more than I thought it would; it still hurts." I opened my mouth to speak, but she moved a finger to my lips. "Let me finish first?" I nodded and she dropped her hand to my knee. "And I don't know what's going to happen now, with Ed- with your father, but it doesn't change who we are. If I have anything to do with it, I will never let anything or anyone hurt you. I'll never let anything or anyone come between us. You're my daughter, you're the very best part of me. _You_ may just be the only good thing I've ever done." She squeezed my leg a little and tweaked my nose. I was too happy that she seemed to be forgiving me to be embarrassed that she was treating me like a little kid. "Definitely the _best_ thing, for sure."

I felt my cheeks heating up a little. "God, you're a sap, Mom." She stood up and elbowed me in the shoulder.

"And you're a smart-ass." Smiling. _Smiling is good_. I stood up and wrapped my arms around my mother, unsure of who was comforting who anymore, wishing for her sake that she could just cry. I can't imagine what it's like to not have that release, when everything horrible has built up and built up, but just stays there, never escaping your body. No drifting off into an exhausted heavy sleep to pass the time and let you heal, no sense of a physical closure to anything.

A tinny rendition of Bach's _Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_ broke through the silence, and I dropped my arms, grabbed my mother's phone off the table behind me and handed it over to her.

"It's your Aunt Alice," she said; she seemed unsure of whether to answer. "I should,"

"You should talk to her, is what you should do." I watched her tap _Accept_, "I need a nap anyway."

I squeezed her shoulder as she brought her phone to her ear, then pulled my sweater tight around me as I headed out of the kitchen, keeping my head down through the living room I never ever wanted to see again. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard my mother's shaky voice.

"No, Alice, please don't tell me. I don't want to know."

The glow-in-the-dark stars my father bought for me mapped out the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere on my bedroom ceiling. We put them up just after we moved in, when he had realized that the home-school science curriculum he'd planned out didn't include astronomy, and _how ever was he going to introduce cosmology if I didn't have a firm grasp of astronomy?_ So we would put up a new constellation every week with a masking tape label under it, which only came off when I'd learned the names of all the stars in it and could identify it in the night sky. We spent a touch less time on the Southern Hemisphere, which we put up in his office. I didn't understand why he wanted cheap plastic stars in the one room where everything was elegant and expensive and oh-so-Edward.

_Oh, Daddy! _I crawled out of bed, where I'd been unsuccessful at willing myself into another nap, and tiptoed across the room to my door; when I opened it, I could hear my mother still talking on the phone, just loud enough that I could hear it, but far too quickly for even _my_ ears to make out what she was saying. My father's study was really the third bedroom, across the hallway beside the bathroom only I ever used. The door to his room creaked a little when I closed it behind me, but if my mother cared, she would have been upstairs laying down the law before a toe left my bedroom.

The smell of old leather crawled up my nose and swirled around me in the dark as I ran the tips of my fingers across the spines of the volumes in his bookcases; I breathed deep until the sharp, musty smell of the oldest books pierced my lungs – my father's journals. I still wouldn't break his confidence like that, curious as I had always been about his past. Over the last sixteen years, he told me so much about his life, from his birth to his death, to meeting my mother and everything in between, that I'd understood it would only be a matter of time before he told me everything I needed to know. Would it be like that now? I wondered if my father would ever trust me again, if he would ever even _see_ me again. _What did she say to you?_ If he was lingering outside the house, surely that thought was loud enough for him to pick up. I curled into his overstuffed leather armchair and stared up at _Crux_, the Southern Cross – Acrux, Mimosa, Gacrux, delta cru, epsilon cru. _I love you, Daddy._


	3. Chapter 3

The next couple of days passed without much incident, and still no sign of my father. I stayed up in my room working through my lesson plans, trying desperately to dissociate the words on the pages from the man who wrote them in an often-futile attempt to avoid the fits of tears that would bring my mother to my side, tissue in hand, before I'd even realized I was making any noise at all. Other than rushing to my side at every perceived need, Mom seemed to stick around the kitchen, cooking and freezing more food than I'd ever seen at once; or she would read on the mudroom couch – I don't know how she could stand that nasty old thing, but she said it reminded her of home. It was here when we moved in, all brown plaid, scratched wood, and old, wet dog smell; I didn't want it around and neither did my Dad, but two against one didn't matter when the "one" was my mother – he'd always cede to her wishes eventually – and so there it was, out in the mudroom, surrounded by boots. It was one of the few things they ever fought about.

"_We can't get rid of it; it's _just_ like Charlie's!" She crossed her arms, and steeled her gaze._

"_Bella, darling, it's unsanitary. We have no idea what's living on that thing! We can have a new one custom made – scratches and all." He smiled and stretched a hand out toward her, but she wouldn't meet it._

"_I'm not sure you're hearing me, Edward. I am keeping this couch," she slowed down and almost snarled the words at him. "It...reminds me...of my..._dead...father_'s! And that's just that!"_

_I watched from my perch on the doorstep as my father let out an audible huff and gripped the bridge of his nose, relieving the headache he would have were he human._

"_Funny how I don't remember Charlie letting any filthy mutts on _his_ furniture."_

_I gasped as I watched the white flash of my mother speeding outside, leaving our front door smashed and splintered in her wake, her guttural, wordless bellow echoing across the empty landscape. My father told me to go up to my room and play, and he would see me shortly, and as soon as I stood and turned, he was outside calling after her._

* * *

The third day after my father left, I woke up with a grumbling stomach after a dream about bacon – piles and piles of bacon on huge silver platters resting on tables and nightstands and unused chairs. _Oooh, oh that's because I __smell__ bacon_. I wonder if I'm the only person who has such insipid dreams; Joseph dreams of Egypt's future, Jacob wrestles an angel that turns out to be God and wakes up with an injury, and me, well, I smell food in my sleep and it shows up in my dream. _Wow_.

My mother was cooking again. I looked at the clock: half past six, not the worst time to wake up, I suppose. On went the robe, and downstairs went the Renesmee. _Holy dork, Batman_. And then I heard the humming; my mother – serious, subdued Bella Cullen – was humming _Heart and Soul_ in the kitchen, off key. I stepped into the room and she turned and threw a big smile.

"Morning, pancakes?"

"Huh?" Oh, right, the flipper's in her hand. "Oh, sure. Sure, I'll have a couple." Time for my smile. I sat down at the table to a huge glass of milk, another of orange juice, six bacon strips, four sausages, and at least four eggs scrambled, and of course, a couple pancakes on the way. I immediately shovelled into my breakfast, washing down big, beastly mouthfuls with milk and juice until I felt my mothers eyes on me. I swallowed hard and wiped my face. "Sorry. Pretty sure you didn't have me in a barn. S'really good, though." I poked a small piece of egg with my fork and brought it to my lips the way Dad insisted I eat – _dainty, now, sweetheart_.

My mother's brow furrowed as she cocked her head to the left. "Good God, you're well-trained!" She righted herself. "How did I never...?" She always seemed to think I couldn't hear her when she muttered.

"How did you never what?"

Brow-furrow again. "It's nothing, just," her face softened again and she shrugged her shoulders, "eat how you want. Who cares?" She turned back to the stove, picked up the frying pan and brought it back to the table, where she plopped my pancakes on my plate and sat down across from me; I resumed gorging myself on her amazing food. How can someone who doesn't eat know just what to put in these eggs? "So, I've been thinking."

I stopped and looked up at her again. "OK? Thinking what?"

"Well, you never knew Charlie, your grandfather. I was thinking we could go see him?"

Oh, _crap_. She's gone crazy, she's off her rocker and I'm alone out here with her! "Uh, mom?" Gentle, _gentle_. "Charlie's, um, he's, uh," _Gulp_. "Well, he's been _gone_ for a while now." I sucked in a deep breath as her eyes widened. It was official, she was about to fall off the deep end and I had no idea what to do.

She laughed, clear bell-tones bouncing off the walls, and now my eyes were widening as all my options ran through my head: run away; grab a phone and run away; scream for Daddy, hoping he was nearby to hear me. What was going on?

Mom stifled her laughter in her hands, and shook her head. "Jeez, Renesmee, I know _that_, at least! How crazy do you think I am?" I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. "Don't answer that." I smiled again. "I just meant, I've never paid my respects and you've never seen where I'm from. I want to go back to his house and say goodbye, you know?"

Maybe I did sort of get it. "I think I do." Her hand was on the table, so I reached mine out and placed it on top of hers. Then I noticed the frying pan sitting in her lap. "You know, if you want to wander among the living, you can't do things like that." I pointed to her bare legs with a still-warm pan resting there.

"No, I guess I can't." She got up and started to do the dishes – I would have offered to help, except that she could do them so much faster than me, or whatever other reason I could insert here – and finished them before I was done eating. I took my last bite, and she grabbed my plate from under my nose. "So, girls' road trip, then?"

"Whatever you need, Mom. You're the boss."

* * *

"Aren't you supposed to have heightened senses or something? Like a never-get-lost superpower?"

"You know, you really aren't helping here, Renesmee. Hand me that map again?" I dug in the glove box, until – _success_! I should just keep this thing out at all times.

"'Sense of direction.' Yeah, that's a sense. Why isn't yours heightened?" Mom just sighed. "Or is _this_ the heightened version? Scary stuff." I shook my head over-dramatically until she looked over, when she rolled her eyes and smiled. "Whoa! Eyes on the road, hands at ten and two, you crazy woman driver!"

"I don't know where you learned to be such a smart-aleck – certainly wasn't from your father, or me. I think we lived with Rose and Emmett for a few too many of your formative years."

"Yeah, Mom, you're practically perfect in every way."

"Listen to yourself, do you hear that?" She let out a chuckle. I'm the smart-aleck? _Uh huh_.

"Hey, about Dad. Do you, uh, do you think he was really going to hurt me?" I blurted out, unsure of just where it came from.

Mom stiffened and locked her eyes on the road. "Yes and no. I don't know, really. _He_ wouldn't – I mean, the person Edward really is – he couldn't dream of hurting you, but, inside of him – all of us – there's this thing, this darkness maybe, that pulls us in one direction, and we have to fight against it every day." She let out a breath. "Here's the turnoff, see? I'm not so useless on the road, after all, huh?"

"Yeah, you discovered the longest highway in the country; you're like a modern-day Lewis, Clarke, and Sacajawea wrapped up in one short, cold little package."

"Ha, ha. Very funny, miss."

The signs passed: _Danger de Nuit_ with a charging moose; _Ouest_; _Sortie_. I wrung my hands while I wondered if I should bring it up again, but I had to know if she knew what Dad was going to do, if she knew what was going to happen now, if anything would be normal again.

I cleared my throat. "So, if you don't want to talk about it, that's cool, I just–"

"I don't really want to talk about it." She kept her eyes on the road. "I'm sorry."

Back to hand-wringing, then. I dug through my purse for gum, read a chapter of my book, and watched the reflectors on the cement barriers go by. They passed too fast for me to count, but I could see them individually for longer than others could – at least that's what everyone told me. I had to be careful how much detail I described things with in public, I was always told. When I was eighteen months old – four years old in whatever-I-am years – and we were living outside of Whitehorse, we had to go into town for supplies and we stopped at Tim Horton's because I wanted a hot chocolate. As soon as we stepped through the doors, I could smell everything around me, where the scents were coming from and drifting toward. There was chilli twisting up over the counter, snaking away from the doors and right over my face, so I opened my mouth and I could taste it; it was delicious, and I told my parents that.

_Mom's nervous giggle. "Oh, sweetie, you're such a good little actress; let's go out and warm up the truck for Daddy while he gets our drinks, OK?"_

"_But I want my hot chocolate inside; it's yummy in here!" I pulled the smells up into my nostrils and twirled around. "I wish you could taste it, Mommy."_

I snapped my gaze back to the roadside; "Ontario: More to Discover." Two provinces down, three or four more to go, depending on where we planned to cross the border. I yawned and pulled my blanket up to my neck as I propped my feet up on the bench seat of my mother's monster of a dirty, blue, '79 F250. As I drifted to sleep, I felt Mom's icy little fingers on my calf.

"Whatever you're worrying about, don't. He's loved you from the moment he heard you, and he'll never stop."

I wasn't totally sure what she meant, but it was exactly what I needed to hear.


End file.
